


Chessboard

by Setcheti



Category: G.I. Joe: Retaliation (2013), NCIS, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Gen, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-15
Updated: 2014-07-15
Packaged: 2018-02-08 22:46:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1958955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Setcheti/pseuds/Setcheti
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The game is only over if your king is captured. But what if he just up and disappears?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chessboard

The afternoon after their latest mission had gone completely south, Tony Stark stalked through the ‘family room’ area of what had become known as Avengers Tower on his way to the kitchen and then stopped, backtracked, and frowned at the man sitting on one of the room’s overstuffed ottomans. What was he doing there, why wasn’t he at the hospital with Clint? Tony took a few steps closer. The SHIELD-appointed leader of the Avengers was crouched over a chessboard that was set up on the coffee table, frowning at the pieces on the board. He was playing chess with himself? A closer look showed that the pieces on the board weren’t laid out for a game, they were laid out for something else. In fact, one of them was on top of an upside-down glass positioned on one side of the board…

Tony quite literally saw red when the significance of the pieces and their positions hit him. He stalked across the room, startling the other man. “Really?” he demanded, almost spitting with rage. “Is that why you almost got him killed, he’s just a pawn?” The other man started to say something, but when Tony was really angry there was no interrupting him, no reasoning with him. “Don’t even try to make some excuse, I can see it, that’s exactly what you did this morning, laid out right there in black and white.”

“I was trying to figure out what went wrong…”

“I know exactly what went wrong,” Tony spat at him. “We’ve got a frozen relic in charge, an outdated figurehead. You belong in a museum, _Captain_ ,” he made the title sound like a slur, “not out in the world where your delusions of being the character you played in the movies can get real people killed.” He lashed out with one hand, knocking the chessboard off the table, scattering the pieces, and then whirled and stalked back out of the room, throwing over his shoulder, “Get out. Just…get out.”

If he had been looking, the expression on Steve Rogers’ face might have brought him back to reality. But Tony wasn’t looking.

 

A little over an hour later, Steve walked into the local VFW and stopped at the receptionist’s desk. He was something of a regular there, a few of the other vets even knew who he actually was and what war he’d really fought in, and sometimes he just needed to talk to an ‘older’ soldier about things. “Is Sparky here today?” he asked the woman behind the desk politely. Normally he just would have waved as he walked past the desk towards the community lounge in the back, but he didn’t recognize her so he thought it was better to let her know why he was there.

Darla looked the young man up and down and made a face. Backpack, portfolio case, overly earnest expression – every inch a GI bill college student who thought he was ‘one of the guys’. “ _Colonel Morris_ died last week,” she returned frostily, emphasizing the name. “If you actually belonged here, you would have known that.”

Steve was taken aback. Sparky was dead? Why hadn’t anyone told him? “I…I was away on a mission…”

“To do what, see how many co-eds you could bag on Spring Break by telling them stories about what a war hero you are?” she demanded, and waved a dismissive hand at him. “I’m not letting you in here to bother the real veterans. Leave now or I’m calling the police.”

He stared at her for a second, then turned around and walked out without another word. Darla went back to the paperwork she’d been sorting through, pleased with how shocked and dismayed the young man had looked. “That went well,” she murmured.

A few moments later, a middle-aged man came out of the back and looked around, frowning. “I thought I heard someone out here…”

Darla waved her hand at the door. “Some college soldier was in here asking for Colonel Morris – he called him Sparky.” She snorted. “If he’d actually known the colonel…well, he left when I threatened to call the police. You should have seen the look on his face, Captain Allen…”

Luke Allen paled. “A big guy, blonde, really intense blue eyes?” he asked, already striding for the door. “Really muscular, like someone who works out all the time?”

“Like I said, a college soldier.” Darla sniffed. “I told him the colonel was dead, his excuse for not knowing was that he’d been on a ‘mission’…”

“He had been.” Luke pushed open the door, he even walked out onto the sidewalk, but the man he was looking for was nowhere in sight. He came back into the building a lot angrier than he’d gone out, planting both fists into the desk and looming over the openmouthed woman. “You just threw a combat veteran – yes, Steve is one – out of our post. You told him a good friend of his had died while he was away on a mission, and believe me someone’s head is going to roll when I find out why _that_ message didn’t get passed along to him, and then you threatened to call the cops on him if he didn’t leave?” He shoved off the desk so violently that she scooted backwards in her chair. “JOHN!” he yelled.

A heavyset black man came out of the back at a run. “Luke, what…”

“This bitch they sent us to man the desk just threw Steve Rogers out – and threatened to call the cops on him – when he came in asking for Sparky.”

The larger man went absolutely still. “She..Darla, you did that? Why would you do that?! Is he still…”

“I looked outside, he was already gone.” Luke ran a hand through his thinning hair. “He obviously didn’t get the message I sent for him, he’d have called if he had.”

“I’ll call him.” John pulled out a cell phone, dwarfed almost to ridiculousness by his large hand, and dialed. After a moment, he closed up the phone with a sigh. “Straight to voicemail.”

“Shit.” Luke fumed for a moment more, and then pointed at Darla. “I may not be able to fire you, but I’ll be damned if you get to sit at that desk anymore after this. Go clean up the stockroom.” She almost ran out of the room, and only once she was gone did Luke deflate, sinking down on a corner of the desk with his head in his hand. “Jesus Christ, John. They just had a battle this morning! If he was here, asking for Sparky…”

“…It’s because he needed to talk.” John sighed. “Somethin’ must have gone wrong and a half.”

“Yeah.” Luke shook his head. “You think he has anywhere else to go?”

John pocketed his phone again. “I sure hope so.”

 

Clint came home from the hospital the next day with his arm in a sling and a small bandage covering the stitches at his hairline. “No shooting for a week,” Natasha was reminding him. “No acrobatics for two. You will sit on the couch and watch television and eat junk food with Thor.”

“Only if someone else is here to supervise,” Bruce tacked on. “Thor doesn’t differentiate between beer and soda, remember?”

“Compared to what he usually drinks, our beer might as well be soda – _diet_ soda,” Clint said; Thor had brought some Asgardian ‘beer’ in once for them to try, and the resulting hangovers had been spectacularly bad. He flopped down on the couch in the family room. And frowned. “Hey, what went on in here? Did somethin’ happen while I was locked up at the hospital?”

“You were under observation, you had a head injury,” Bruce corrected patiently. But he, too, was frowning. There were chess pieces scattered across the carpet near the coffee table, a glass laying on its side nearby, and when he walked around the other side he found the chessboard face down in the carpet as well. “What the hell?”

Natasha took in the pattern of the scattered items and scowled. “No sign of a true struggle, but the board looks to have been pushed off the table with some force.”

“Like someone smacked it off the table.” Clint leaned forward, but Bruce pushed him back into the couch again. He huffed but stayed put. “There were only two people here, guys – you two were babysittin’ me, and Thor went to visit Jane.”

“Tony and Steve don’t play chess together, though,” Bruce observed, shaking his head. “Steve plays with me sometimes, but Tony hates chess.”

Natasha had gathered up the pieces, the board, and the glass, and put them back on the table. “Nobody was playing,” she said. “There are only six pieces out, all the same color. The rest are still in the case.”

One of the ottomans was pulled up near the table, and Bruce sat down on it, staring at the board. “There was only one person here,” he agreed. “Steve, probably.” He put the pieces back on the board one at a time, shifting them around. “Why these pieces, though? It doesn’t make sense.”

“Yeah, it does.” Clint moved to the edge of the couch, scowling, waving away Bruce’s move to push him back again with his good hand. “No, just look.” He started arranging the pieces on the board. “Thor, Tony, you two, Cap.” Then he turned the glass upside down and decisively set the pawn on top of it. “Me.” He slumped back again, shaking his head. “He was tryin’ to figure out what went wrong.”

“And then either he got frustrated…”

“Or Tony did, yeah.” Clint turned his eyes toward the ceiling. “Jarvis, is Steve in the gym? He wasn’t answerin’ his phone earlier when Nat tried to call him.”

“Captain Rogers’ cell phone is in his room,” the cultured voice of the building’s A.I. informed him immediately. “He did not take it with him when he left.”

“Left?” A cold knot was forming in the pit of Clint’s stomach, the kind he only got when something was starting to go so far south it had penguins dancing on it. “Where’d he go?”

“I do not know, Agent Barton.”

Natasha and Clint shared a look, and Bruce stood up slowly. “ _When_ did he go?” he asked.

“He left yesterday, Dr. Banner. He has not returned to the tower, and I do not know his current whereabouts.”

“His motorcycle has a tracer on it…”

“The captain did not take the motorcycle,” Jarvis informed them. “He left on foot, with his backpack and shield.”

Bruce was trembling now, and not in a good way. “Jarvis, what happened in this room right before he left?”

“If you wish to see footage from the room’s security cameras…”

“No!” Clint snapped, making both Bruce and Natasha jump. “No, Jarvis, not yet. Bruce, go to the kitchen and make tea,” he ordered. “You’re not gonna see this, because as much as I love the big guy, I’m not up to dealin’ with him right now.”

“I won’t…”

“Bruce, your eyes are the color of a traffic light,” Clint told him gently but still firmly. “Go. Calm. Down. Nat and I will find out what happened, then we’ll tell you, and then we’ll all figure out what to do about it, together. But we need you bein’ you to do that, okay? The big guy will get his turn later.”

Bruce just stared at him for a minute, and then he visibly deflated. “I’m…sorry. I’ll go make tea.”

“I want the chocolate kind you told me ain’t really chocolate at all,” Clint requested. “I liked that one.”

Bruce gave him an ever-so-slightly exasperated look. “Did you want me to make cookies too?” He held up a hand quickly before the other man’s mouth could open. “No, don’t answer that, pretend I didn’t say it. I’ll get some out of Thor’s stash.”

Clint grinned at him. “We can probably convince him he ate them himself. Leave that to me.” Bruce rolled his eyes – which were brown again – and walked out of the room, heading for the kitchen. Clint’s smile fell off. “Okay Jarvis, now you can play it – but if he comes back in the room, it goes off. I don’t think you want to supervise the rebuildin’ of this part of the tower, right?”

“Certainly not, sir.”

The flatscreen that dominated the room flickered to life, and a security camera’s eye view appeared. Steve was sitting on the ottoman, the pieces on the chessboard in front of him placed almost exactly the way Clint had just arranged them. He looked frustrated, upset, and Natasha shook her head. “He did not know about the transmission interference with your communicator.”

“Nobody did until I woke up, remember?” Clint watched his friend stare at the board, hurting for him. And then Tony came into the scene, and the fact that Steve hadn’t even registered he was there until the other man was practically right on top of him should have spoken volumes. But it hadn’t. The ugly tirade rolled out, blindsiding Steve, and when Tony’s hand lashed out Clint jumped to his feet without even realizing he’d done it until Natasha steadied him. “Jarvis…turn it off,” he said hoarsely. The video froze, Steve’s shocked, sickened expression frozen with it, and Clint covered his eyes. “No, the whole thing. Turn the whole thing off, please.”

The screen went dark. “I am sorry, Agent Barton.”

“You’re not the one who should be, Jarvis.” Clint’s good hand clenched into a fist. “Is Tony in his workshop downstairs?”

“Yes, sir has been there since his confrontation with Captain Rogers yesterday.”

Clint was the one shaking now. He let Natasha lower him back onto the couch, leaning against her as much for comfort as for support. “Warn us if he comes out.” He rested his head on her shoulder. “Just…warn us.”

 

Jarvis warned them about an hour and two cups of Clint’s non-chocolate tea apiece later. Bruce thought for a moment, then stood up and grabbed the teapot. “I…I don’t dare stay out here for this. I’ll be in my room.”

“No problem, Bruce. Meditate a little for me so I don’t rip this sling off and throttle him with it.” That got a small smile, and then Bruce made tracks for his room. Clint drained his cup and frowned at it. “Dammit, he took the rest of my tea with him.”

“Keep your sling on and I will make you more,” Natasha promised.

He grinned at her, although it was a shadow of his usual one. “You don’t make it as good as Bruce does, he’s just got the touch, you know? But don’t worry, I’ll be good. I’m mad, yeah, but I get that he didn’t mean it that way.”

“Mean what what way?” Tony blew into the room, radiating all the energy Clint was lacking at the moment, possibly even more. “I smell that weird tea, where’s Bruce?”

“He needed to be by himself for a while,” Clint told him. He reminded himself that he understood, that they were adults, and that different people reacted to stress in different ways. He reminded himself that Steve knew that too. Then he took an internal inventory. Nope, still mad. “What’ve you been working on since yesterday? Jarvis said you’d been down in your lab.”

Tony hummed, shaking his head at the same time. “Tattletale. No, not working on anything in particular, just poking at some things, trying to make them better.”

“Yeah, you should try that with the communicators SHIELD gave us,” Clint told him, trying and almost succeeding to keep the edge out of his voice. “The interference from that microwave tower damn near got me killed, I’d really like for that not to happen again.”

Tony froze. “What? What interference?”

“You have not read the report?” Natasha asked him, knowing quite well that he hadn’t – she’d checked. “Clint told us when he woke in the hospital, and the SHIELD investigators traced the problem to the microwave transmitter on a nearby roof.” She shrugged. “They say they will report the problem.”

“Yeah, I’m sure they will,” Tony said, rolling his eyes. It looked a little forced. “I’ll whip us up some better ones, you guys can help me test them once Robin Hood here is off the couch.”

“I’m here ‘til next week,” Clint told him. “And out of the gym for two. I can help you test, though, so it doesn’t happen again.”

“Yeah, no, we don’t want that.” Now Tony was looking even more agitated. He made a show of looking around. “Where’s the Star-Spangled Man? I thought he’d be hovering.”

Clint shrugged – and did it wrong, which made him wince. “Haven’t seen him, he wasn’t at the hospital.” Tony pulled out his phone. “He doesn’t have his phone with him, either – Jarvis says it’s in his room.”

That appeared to catch Tony flat-footed. “He forgot it? Where is he?”

Natasha stopped Clint from shrugging again, frowning at him. “Do not make me knock you out.” She returned her attention to Tony. And shrugged. “We do not know. Jarvis does not either.”

“He left…”

“Yesterday.” Clint looked the other man in the eye. “We came in and saw where someone threw the chessboard, asked Jarvis what happened. He showed us.” Tony looked away. “Yeah, you should feel bad. I know you were upset too, and neither of you knew what had actually happened, but the look on his face when you told him to get out almost made me puke.”

“I didn’t…well, yeah, I guess I did.” Tony shook his head, slowly. “He’ll come back, we’ll sort it out. So Bruce left before I came in…on purpose?”

“So he wouldn’t destroy this part of the building? Yeah. He’s pissed.”

Surprisingly, Tony’s jaw set. “Well, so was I. Am I, actually, whatever. If the coldblooded bastard wants to run off and sulk, let him. He’ll come back, it’s not like he has anyplace else to go.”

If Natasha hadn’t been quick, and strong, and a bit cruel, Clint would have been over the back of the couch. As it was the method she used to keep him in place made him gasp. “Jesus, don’t…I’ll stay put, just don’t do that again,” he panted. “Tony…go fix the communicators, because we all know SHIELD won’t get to it for months. And one FUBAR like this is one more than we can afford.”

“Go,” Natasha hissed when the other man didn’t move. “I will help you test when you are ready – he is right, it is a risk we cannot take. Even now our enemies may be working out ways to exploit this weakness.”

Tony stared at her for a long moment, and then turned and left the room without another word. Natasha pulled Clint back onto her shoulder, as he had been earlier. “He speaks without thinking, says what he is feeling at that moment, no matter how inappropriate.”

“I know,” Clint murmured into the side of her neck. She could feel him trembling, and knew this time it was mostly from rage. “I’m just…Jesus, Nat. I was worried about Steve not comin’ back, but now I’m wonderin’…what does it mean if he does?”

Natasha didn’t know and so didn’t answer, just held him tighter.

 

Steve Rogers had always been smart – all that the serum had done for him in the brainpower department was make his already good memory photographic. Steve had also always thought tactically – not like he’d had a choice, growing up a wheezing runt in the poor end of Brooklyn, and being in the Army had only refined his skills in that area. So while he was genuinely interested in his teammates and honestly liked to listen to them talk, he had also carefully filed away the pertinent details of every story Clint and Natasha had ever told about their jobs, and he had paid even closer attention to the stories he’d been able to worm out of Bruce. After all, one of the most wanted men on the planet had somehow managed to not only get out of the country but also to hop from country to country while avoiding being found by the US government for nearly six years. And Steve Rogers was not the kind of man who let a resource he might need go to waste. He had considered and planned for every possible bad thing that might happen to his team, not to mention every possible bad thing that might happen to him personally.

The previous day’s incident hadn’t been one that was on his list – not specifically, anyway – but he was adaptable and he worked around it. He knew that Tony Stark tended to shoot crap out of his mouth when he was upset about something, and that wasn’t what had made him leave. No, he hadn’t gone back because what Tony had said plus what had happened at the VFW – and if that bitch at the desk hadn’t been a SHIELD plant Steve had never seen one – had shaken his faith, not in himself but in the people around him. Because the Avengers had been working together, living together, for quite a while now, and Tony should have known Steve well enough that a good half of the mouth diarrhea he’d spewed out shouldn’t have been in his mind at all. And SHIELD should have realized that 1) Steve knew what national security was and did not cross that line, and that 2) Steve was human, and sometimes he just needed to talk to another soldier. The fact that SHIELD had tried to force him out of the VFW – and had turned away how many other innocent veterans while their plant had been there – incensed him. His friends did not deserve that just for being his friends. And something was obviously up with his teammates, too, because he’d never given them cause not to trust him, on or off the field of battle.

So, he just hadn’t gone back, to either place, once he’d been evicted from both. Steve was man enough to admit that he was shaken by three inexplicable incidents happening on the same day – Clint Barton not following his order to move out of harm’s way until almost a full two minutes _after_ that order had been given had been the first one. Steve needed to get his head on straight, he knew that – he couldn’t do his job as a leader, keeping his team or anyone else safe, if he was ‘thinking into trees’. Sparky had said that.

Steve spared a moment of mental silence for Sparky, and then went back to work restacking bales on the deck of the barge he was working for his passage on. He’d lost his SHIELD tail back in Brooklyn, calling up the field skills he’d been careful not to let anyone know he still had and making the tail think he’d gone to a particular place and stayed there when he’d actually just used that place as a quick pit-stop to break his trail before heading off in a different direction entirely.

His next stop was going to be to find a man who he hoped could point him in his next right direction, a man both Clint and Bruce had mentioned on separate occasions and who they probably didn’t realize they both knew. Until then…well, it felt good to be doing some simple, normal, non-violent physical labor for a change, and Steve had made up his mind that he was going to enjoy it while it lasted.

 

Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs came out of the NCIS director’s office and stalked down into the middle of his people. “We’ve got a case. Get your gear, we’re flying out in thirty.”

“Not you, Ziva,” the director called down from the upper level. Gibbs turned around and glared at him, but Vance just shook his head. “No, she’s got less mouth control than he does, and that is a complication you are not going to need. I can use her to work on things from this end.”

Gibbs huffed. “Fine. Ziva, stay here. DiNozzo, McGee, you’re still standing here. I’ll brief you on the plane.” The two younger men hurriedly got up and headed for the locker room, and Gibbs turned back to Ziva. “He’s right, it would be a problem. So fix it,” he ordered. “I’ve made use of your lack of tact before, but you’re supposed to be a top-level agent.” He waved his hand toward the now-vacant upper level. “Ask him to help you with that.”

“Yes Gibbs, “ Ziva said, and watched him stomp off before she sat back down at her desk. She was actually somewhat glad she wasn’t going with him this time. Whatever the case was, it obviously had him more on edge than usual.

 

The plane that was waiting for them at the airport was on the small side, a government plane usually reserved for important people who were going somewhere in a hurry. Gibbs hustled his two mystified agents on board and laid out files in front of them as soon as the wheels left the ground. “We’re going to New York,” he said. “A soldier has gone missing and our team was requested. These folders have non-disclosure forms, sign them so I can finish briefing you.”

McGee started to say something, but a sharp elbow from DiNozzo shut his mouth. He got the elbow again when he started to read the paper before he signed it, but Gibbs just shook his head. “Just sign, McGee – I already went over it, there’s nothing funny in there.”

DiNozzo had already signed his and pushed the folder back over to his boss; McGee quickly followed suit. “Okay, so who requested us? Is that why we rate the VIP plane?”

“The plane is more about speed being of the essence,” Gibbs told him. “Four days ago there was another attack in New York. Heard about it?”

Both men nodded. “One of the Avengers was injured,” McGee said. “Hawkeye, the archer.”

“He had a concussion and a separated shoulder,” Gibbs said. “He’s back at Avengers Tower now, and that’s where we’re going first.” DiNozzo’s mouth dropped open. “What?”

“ _Captain America_ is missing? And they called _us_? SHIELD…”

Gibbs held up a hand. “Don’t talk to me about SHIELD, I’m hoping we won’t have to deal with them directly anyway – someone over their director’s head called us in and told him to butt out in no uncertain terms, so he’s not very happy right now. Yes, it was Captain _Rogers_ ,” he emphasized the name, and DiNozzo nodded that he wouldn’t make the mistake again. “He’s been missing since the day of the fight. He walked out of the Tower with a backpack and his shield, leaving his cell phone and his motorcycle behind, and no one has seen him since.”

“Shit.” DiNozzo ran a hand through his hair. “So he left of his own free will?”

“Yes, but that’s not the whole story. McGee, we have surveillance footage, pull them up oldest first.”

McGee took the flash drive he tossed over and pulled up the first one, which showed a verbal confrontation that went somewhat physical between Anthony Stark and Captain Rogers – physical on Stark’s part, anyway. And the next two showed some of their other teammates discovering the scene the next day, and then having a mild confrontation with Stark over the incident. “So it’s a misunderstanding?” DiNozzo asked once the footage was done playing. “Rogers thought Stark was throwing him out?”

“Maybe for a minute he did,” McGee disagreed quietly. “I think Stark’s outburst took him by surprise more than anything.”

“That’s what I think too.” Gibbs tapped one finger on the tabletop. “Those people have been living and working together for over a year now, and by all accounts they’ve ironed out the kinks in their working relationships. Whatever else was said aside, they fully expected Rogers to come back home by the next day, or at least to show up at SHIELD headquarters to check in, but he hasn’t done either.”

“And the President doesn’t want SHIELD to track him down…”

“Because he’s not sure what they’d do when they found him.” Gibbs made a face. “Let’s just say some of the people in and above that organization apparently have some pretty un-American ideas about the captain’s exact status, and the President is livid. So SHIELD has been warned to back off and leave the case to us. Our job is to locate Captain Rogers, find out exactly why he left, and then _ask_ him to come back if his reason wasn’t something that means he really shouldn’t.”

“So he has the option to not come back?” McGee asked, and looked relieved when Gibbs nodded. “Do we have any leads?”

“Not yet.” Gibbs sat back in the padded chair and stretched out his legs. “That’s something else. Rogers may have been expecting something to happen, possibly ever since they woke him up. He’s been holding back, not letting them know just how good he really is – until now. He lost his SHIELD tail in Brooklyn and then vanished, even a check of the city’s security and traffic cameras hasn’t turned up a sighting of him.”

“Which means he knew how to avoid them, and he more than likely disguised himself too.” DiNozzo was nodding. “And he probably _led_ them to Brooklyn – familiar territory for him, not so much for whoever was tailing him. He knows a whole side of that city that everyone else has forgotten about.”

“Yep, exactly. But that also means he planned it ahead of time, well before the incident four days ago but well after they woke him up just over a year ago – there weren’t traffic cameras in the thirties for him to avoid, or security cameras either.” Gibbs scowled. “Something has been going very, very wrong around Captain Rogers, and we’re going to find out what it was.”

 

Avengers Tower, formerly Stark Tower, was a gleaming monolith perched at the end of an older section of Manhattan. A professionally polished receptionist at the equally gleaming front desk called up to verify that Gibbs and DiNozzo were expected – McGee was checking them into their hotel and getting to work on the data they already had – and then a security man with an earwhig escorted them to an elevator which he unlocked with his badge. The elevator’s interior was all polished wood and brass, and it didn’t have any buttons or even an emergency panel anywhere to be seen. “This must be the private elevator,” DiNozzo observed. “I wonder what the rest of them look like?”

A deep, British-accented voice came from a concealed speaker near the ceiling, startling him. “The other elevator interiors are designed to complement the lobby, Agent DiNozzo,” it said. “This is Mr. Stark’s private elevator, and it is the only one which goes directly to the penthouse level.”

Gibbs smiled, just slightly. “Jarvis, right?”

“Yes, Special Agent Gibbs,” the voice returned. A pause. “Agent McGee is not with you?”

“He’s getting us checked into our hotel,” Gibbs replied. “You should probably be glad he’s not with us, he’d be fascinated by you.”

“I am incredibly fascinating, especially to a computer specialist,” the voice allowed, sounding almost pleased with itself. “Perhaps I shall meet him at a later time, after you have found Captain Rogers and brought him home.” Another pause. “If he wishes to return home, that is.”

DiNozzo cocked his head. “You don’t think he wants to come home?”

“I am unsure,” was the reply. “If he has found a place where he is happy, then he may choose to remain there.” This time the pause was longer. “Captain Rogers has done an admirable job of adapting to the new century he was awakened in, but he was…quite lonely, in spite of that.”

“I can understand why he would be,” Gibbs agreed. “He showed signs of depression?”

“Not at a level which would have required medical intervention, but yes. I was monitoring the situation, his symptoms were mild and not at all out of proportion to his situation.”

“Did he show signs of PTSD?” DiNozzo wanted to know. “Things like nightmares, flashbacks…”

“I know what post-traumatic stress is, Agent.” Jarvis sounded just the slightest bit huffy. “The captain had frequent nightmares, yes. They seemed to be most intense after a battle, but at other times he would merely wake up as though he had been startled by something and then cry himself back to sleep.” He seemed to anticipate the next question before it could be asked. “The others did not notice. Due to the captain’s enhanced metabolism, the physical signs of his distress did not remain visible for any appreciable length of time.”

“I was afraid you were going to say that,” was Gibbs’ response. “Thank you, Jarvis, you’ve been very helpful.”

There wasn’t any response to that, but the elevator doors slid open. A shortish man with dark wavy hair and rumpled clothes was standing there, and he offered them a crooked smile. “Agents Gibbs and DiNozzo, right?”

“Dr. Banner,” Gibbs said, and held out his hand. Banner looked startled by that, but he shook hands gingerly, and then shook hands with DiNozzo as well. “I’m guessing you met us out here so you could talk to us first?”

Banner nodded. “You guess right.”

“Us, or them?”

He chuckled. “Tony, actually. Me getting pissed off at him right here and now could kind of hinder your investigation. Not to mention, Jarvis wouldn’t be very happy with me afterwards.”

“Yeah, I can see how he might feel that way. We spoke with him on the ride up, he said Captain Rogers has been depressed and having nightmares?”

Banner snorted. “I dare you to find anyone on this floor who doesn’t have nightmares. But yes, Steve was depressed. Not to a point where I thought he would hurt himself – not that he can do that very easily to begin with, at least not permanently – but just about the level I thought was normal for his situation.”

DiNozzo’s eyebrow went up at his phrasing. “You’ve been talking to Jarvis about this?”

Another snort. “I’m the one who told Jarvis what to watch for. Because of the situation, the regular mental-health guidelines for that sort of thing don’t apply to Steve all that well. He’s been doing okay, though, considering. I do think he’d be doing a lot better if monsters and bad guys didn’t keep attacking the planet, though.”

“Yeah, there definitely is that,” Gibbs agreed. “How about within the team, any new problems…or old ones?”

The smaller man shrugged. “Believe it or not, we actually all get along pretty well most of the time – yes, even Tony. In spite of the overwhelming outbreak of assholeishness you no doubt already saw footage of, he’s usually just mouthy. The violence of that particular outburst sort of took us all by surprise. Including him, I think. He’s normally not like that, even when he’s mad.” He saw the look. “No, I’m not defending him, I just don’t think this was all about him. But believe me, if I find out Steve ran off and got hurt or something because of what Tony said…well, take a picture of the Tower before you leave, for posterity. Because Hulk is the original Wreck-It Ralph, and Tony doesn’t have a magic hammer.” That made DiNozzo snicker, which made Banner smile, a little sadly. “Yeah. Steve likes that movie, made me watch it with him over and over again. I didn’t realize until our fourth or fifth viewing that he’d been trying to make a point – sometimes the problem isn’t what you are or what you do, it’s the role other people have cast you in and what they project onto you because of it. It was a…perspective I hadn’t considered before when it came to my own situation.” He frowned. “Or when it came to his, now that I think about it.”

“In your opinion, what did people expect from Captain Rogers?” Gibbs wanted to know.

“Perfection,” Banner answered at once. “Something he knew he couldn’t always deliver – Steve is a big proponent of ‘just doing your best’ – but the pressure was definitely there. You talked to anyone at SHIELD yet?”

“No, we came here first. The President told SHIELD to stay out of it, so we won’t be talking to them unless I think they have information we need.”

“If it’s something that would be in a computer, you can always ask Jarvis for it instead,” Banner offered. “He waltzes in and out of their network like he was dating their security system.”

“Hardly – it is the computer equivalent of a picket-fence gate with a Keep Out sign on it when compared to me,” came from Jarvis. “Dr. Banner, Mr. Stark is heading this way.”

“Thank you, Jarvis. I told him to let me know,” he explained to the agents. “So unless you have anything else…”

“We’re good for now, thanks,” Gibbs told him. “Just out of curiosity, Doctor…which character is Stark?”

Banner blinked at him in surprise, and then he smiled. “Vannelope, believe it or not. But don’t tell him I said that; he really, really wants to think he’s Felix.”

A really stunning redhead came into the foyer and frowned, waving her hand at him in a shooing motion, and he left in the opposite direction in a hurry. And then a few seconds later two men appeared, one of them older and nervous, the other younger but calmer and with his arm in a sling. The older man, dark haired and wiry with a neat but slightly villainous goatee, rolled his eyes. “Jarvis, tell Bruce he is a craven coward.”

“Hardly,” Gibbs muttered under his breath, nodding to the man. “Mr. Stark, Agents Romanov and Barton, I’m Special Agent Gibbs and this is Agent DiNozzo. We’re here to ask you some questions about Captain Rogers.”

“Yes, you’re here because the president spanked SHIELD and sent Fury to bed without his supper,” Stark rephrased gleefully. “I’m really sorry there isn’t video of that, really.” He waved his hand toward the couches in the other room. “Come on in, sit down, admire the view.”

“We’re fine, thanks,” Gibbs told him. “This shouldn’t take all that long, actually. We just need to know if Captain Rogers had said anything that could give us a clue to where he might have gone after he disappeared from Brooklyn.” He saw the looks of surprise. “That’s where he ditched the tail SHIELD had on him. He evaded all of the traffic cameras afterwards, too, so we know he had to have been planning this for a while. Has he ever given any of you any reason to think he might be running from something? Or that he thought he might need to at some point?”

The two agents looked at each other, frowning, but Stark rolled his eyes. “You mean like the law? Are you accusing America’s Golden Boy of doing something _bad_ , Special Agent Gibbs? Because that just isn’t done in this day and age.”

“Could have been SHIELD,” Barton said, more to Romanov than Gibbs; he ignored Stark. “I can’t think of anyone else it could be, can you? Even if HYDRA had resurfaced, he wouldn’t have run from them.”

“No, he would not have,” Romanov agreed. “And if he was able to ‘ditch’ the agent following him, he has obviously been keeping certain skills he possesses a secret from everyone since his awakening. It is possible he anticipated that SHIELD might turn out to be something other than what they present themselves to be.”

“So yeah, he could have thought he’d need to run from SHIELD at some point,” Barton told Gibbs and DiNozzo. “They kind of screwed up when they woke him up, so he’d have had a reason right from the get-go to not be sure he should trust them.”

Gibbs noticed that got a reaction from Romanov for some reason, a reaction so small most people wouldn’t have noticed it, but he did. She didn’t say anything, though, so he left it alone. “Considering some of the other things we’ve heard, I agree with your reasoning on that,” he told the agents. “Mr. Stark, you mentioned him breaking the law. Do you know something we don’t?”

“I’m sure I know thousands of things you don’t,” Stark told him. “I am a genius, after all. But no, I’ve got nothing for you on that score. And even if he did do something wrong, I’m sure SHIELD would just cover it up because he’s a national icon and all.”

“SHIELD only engages in that sort of cover-up when national security is involved,” Romanov corrected him, looking annoyed. “You should know, they have attempted to do it for you in the past.”

“Ah, but _I_ didn’t let them. _I_ told the truth.” He winked at Gibbs and DiNozzo when she glowered at him. “See, you aren’t supposed to say you’re better than Captain America, either. He is as a god among mortals…”

“Are you done?” Barton demanded. He looked more annoyed than Romanov now. “You know, don’t answer that, I’m sure you’re not. So unless you have anything to add that isn’t all about proving what a dick you are, why don’t you just shut the fuck up while the rest of us try to figure out what happened to Steve, huh? Because the show you’re putting on aside, we know he didn’t just leave because of you.” He turned back to Gibbs. “No, Steve doesn’t break the law – he wouldn’t, unless he had a damn good reason.”

“I concur,” came from Romanov. “He is very cautious regarding the ramifications of his actions, and in his dealings with other people.”

“True,” Stark agreed. “He’s pretty, he’s supposedly smart, and everyone loves him – so just like any other celebrity, he keeps his public at arms’ length to keep the illusion going. In real life he’s kind of boring and prudish, keeps to himself a lot, watches kids’ movies with Bruce sometimes but otherwise doesn’t really ‘connect’ with people in a normal way.” This time when Barton glared, the billionaire glared back at him. “I don’t know why you, of all people, keep defending the stuck-up bastard,” Stark shot at him. “After all, to him you’re just a pawn – and he’s the king.”

Barton went red, but Gibbs waved the archer silent and raised an impatient eyebrow at the billionaire. “I saw what set you off, and you read it wrong. It’s about moves, not value, Stark,” he snapped. “A pawn has limited mobility in a limited area – like a rooftop. The king is just as limited, because he has to stay in the center of things. The queen, or in this case the Hulk, has almost no limits, that piece can go anywhere. Knights like yourself and Thor are able to move in from unexpected directions. The bishop,” he indicated Natasha, “moves obliquely, striking and then retreating to strike again.” He shrugged. “It was a solid tactical deployment of limited personnel. The kid’s good.”

Stark made a face that was the annoyed cousin to an embarrassed sulk. “He’s not a ‘kid’, he’s in his nineties.”

“He’s 27,” DiNozzo corrected. “Physical age, years of actual life experience – the Army doesn’t count the time he spent in the ice and neither do we. He’s 27.”

“A kid,” Gibbs repeated. “But still a combat veteran, and a torture survivor…” His eyebrow raised when Stark’s expression flickered with something. “Yes, he has been, by experts,” Gibbs confirmed. “More than once, in fact – the Army’s records of his missions are mostly complete, even if most of them are still considered classified because of the captain’s project and the HYDRA connection. In fact, the only person in this room who’s never been tortured is Agent DiNozzo, and even he’s come damn close.” He gave Stark a look of his own. “Get over it,” he ordered in a low voice. “We’re not here for you, we’re here to find out what happened to Captain Rogers. Right now, I don’t give a damn about you except for the fact that your outburst that day was apparently the trigger that caused him to leave this building, on foot, without letting anyone know where he was going or giving anyone a way to get in touch with him. Now do you have any actual information for me about Captain Rogers, or are you just wasting my time?” Stark didn’t say anything. “That’s what I thought. So if you don’t mind, these two,” he indicated Barton and Romanov, “actually do have information I might be able to use. Just like Dr. Banner did.”

Stark opened his mouth…and then he closed it again, turned around and stomped out of the foyer. Gibbs immediately returned his attention to the two agents. “Sorry about that, but in a missing persons case time is of the essence – even if we do think the person went missing on purpose. Now, I had another question for the two of you: Has Captain Rogers ever asked either of you about your jobs, specifically about how you do them?”

They looked at each other, puzzled at first, and then Barton’s eyes widened. “Son of a bitch. No,” he told Gibbs. “No, he never asks outright, but he listens real closely when any of us tell a story and he asks questions to clarify points he isn’t sure about.”

Romanov nodded slowly. “And he has done the same to Bruce.”

“Who managed to escape from the Army, get out of the country and evade capture for years,” Gibbs agreed grimly. “Any ideas about what escape method the captain might have chosen?”

Barton’s jaw had set. “I’d bet money a barge, hauling freight. I’ve done it before _and_ I’ve told Steve about it, and those guys only care that you’re strong enough to do the work.” He made a face. “He probably told them he was an immigrant with an expired visa who was outrunning INS – those guys fucking hate INS, and they help a lot of people jump the borders. He’d have probably said he was German or Polish, he speaks both languages well enough to pass.”

“Know if the three of you have any ‘friends’ in common?”

That got him more thinking and some head-shaking. “I can’t think of anyone. And you won’t get names out of Bruce, he’s still afraid he might need ‘em again someday.”

Romanov, however, was frowning. “Wait, you had a connection who was retired, in Mexico wasn’t he? Bruce has been in Mexico. And that man…”

“Aw, yeah. Retired spook,” Barton explained to Gibbs. “Says he left the game, we all know he’s just playin’ for his own team now but that’s okay – he’s a good guy, solid. You can’t trust him all the way, but then you really can’t trust any of us all the way, you know? So yeah, maybe him.” He made a face. “I can try to get hold of him and ask, but I can’t give you his name…”

Gibbs snorted a laugh. “You don’t have to, I know him – in fact, he trained me. He ever mention ‘Gunny’ to you?”

“ _You’re_ Gunny?” Barton grinned. “Okay, I’m honored to have met you now. Yeah, that’s him. Jarvis?”

“Yes, Agent Barton?”

“Ask Bruce if he’s ever mentioned our mutual friend ‘Franks’ to Steve. Yes or no.”

A pause. “Dr. Banner is swearing quite violently and I fear for my structural integrity. Yes.”

“Tell him it’s actually a good thing, we’ll talk about it later.” Barton’s grin had widened, although he didn’t really look amused. “Yeah, that’s where he went, then. You know…”

“I can get in touch with him, yeah, it’s not a problem.”

DiNozzo had stepped aside, answering a call over his earpiece. “Boss,” he said abruptly. “McGee just found another lead. Rogers didn’t just leave here and he didn’t go straight to Brooklyn, he went somewhere else first.”

“Is he there now?”

“No, but he was. And some of the people there know him.” He frowned. “Apparently a friend of his died not quite two weeks ago, while he was on a mission. They tried to leave a message for him, but it got caught up in some…red tape.”

Gibbs translated that as some overeager SHIELD agent had intercepted the message and Rogers had never received it. “He went to talk to this person?”

“Yeah. And then…stuff happened, but it was someone else’s stuff and he left again. His friends there are really worried about him. They’ve been trying to call him, repeatedly, since he left that afternoon.”

“We’ll go talk to them now.” He nodded to Clint and Natasha. “Barton, Romanov. When we find something, anything, we’ll be in touch.”

“You have our number, call _any_ time,” Barton told him. “If we can’t answer, Jarvis will answer for us.”

 

VFW Post 142 was a plain-looking little storefront on a quieter side street, When Gibbs walked in, the heavyset man sitting on one corner of the front desk looked him up and down and grinned. “Howdy, Marine. I’m Luke – it’s only Captain Adams if I don’t like you. You’re welcome here, but most of you grunts hang out over at 156 instead.”

Gibbs snorted. “I’m too old to ‘hang out’ anymore,” he said. “I’m Special Agent Gibbs – formerly Gunnery Sergeant Gibbs – and this is Agent DiNozzo. We’re investigating the disappearance of…”

“It’s a disappearance now?” the other man in the room, a very large, imposing black man exclaimed. He looked dismayed. “Shit. I should have gone out there and tracked him down, I knew I should have…”

“We didn’t think he’d disappear any more than I bet that team of his did,” Luke told him. He shrugged at Gibbs. “Steve came in looking for a buddy of his, Sparky – he comes in on a semi-regular basis, but usually if he comes specifically to talk to Sparky it’s because he needs an older soldier to help screw his head back on straight – and Sparky was good at that, real good.”

“Sparky was Colonel Morris, the one who died two weeks ago?” DiNozzo asked.

“Yeah. I sent Steve a message, but I don’t think he ever got it. God-damned spooks over at SHIELD probably sat on it for some reason. They don’t like him coming over here a whole lot.”

“He told you that?”

“He didn’t have to, they sent someone around to get tough with us about it.” He shook his head. “I wasn’t here, but John was.”

“And so was Sparky,” the larger man added. “Sergeant John Cotter, call me John. I wasn’t too sure how to handle that spook and his threats, but Sparky came out and ripped him up one side and down the other just for trying it, told him any veteran was welcome here at any time and they’d better back the hell off. They didn’t come back after that.”

“That you know of,” Gibbs warned. “And we already know about the problems with SHIELD – that’s why we’re looking for Captain Rogers and they aren’t. They were ordered to stay out of it.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” Luke told him. “Anyway, Steve came in the afternoon after that last battle they had, the one where their archer got hurt, and he was asking for Sparky. Darla here,” he gestured to a middle-aged woman who was cleaning shelves on the other side of the room, “decided that he didn’t look like enough of a soldier to her, so she ran him off.”

“Threatened to call the cops on him,” John added. “Joke would have been on her if she had, it’s not like most of them in this neighborhood don’t know who he is.”

“I think he just didn’t want to deal with it,” Luke maintained. “He came in asking for Sparky, needing to talk, and she told him Sparky was dead and that he didn’t look like a real soldier to her. Apparently he just walked out without another word, and he was already gone a few minutes later when I went out to see if I could catch him.”

Gibbs transferred his attention to the woman identified as Darla. “Ma’am, could you stand up please? I need to ask you some questions about what happened that day.”

The woman climbed heavily to her feet; it did not escape either Gibbs’ or DiNozzo’s notice that neither of the soldiers present offered to help her. She was a heavyset woman with graying hair, and DiNozzo thought it was probable that the nervous, cowed expression she was wearing was not the one she’d come to work with a few days before. “I…made a mistake,” she said, looking at Gibbs and then looking away again quickly. “I thought…when I was hired, I was told to make sure people who were here for the wrong reasons were directed elsewhere and didn’t bother the real veterans.”

“And what made you think Captain Rogers was here for the wrong reasons?”

“He came in asking for ‘Sparky’,” she told him. “The colonel had died the week before. It was…disrespectful.”

Gibbs gave her a knowing look. “What else?”

Darla looked at the floor. “I thought…I thought he was one of those college soldiers, the ones who just join up so the government will pay their way through school.”

“You’ve turned others away for this same reason?” She nodded, still not looking up. “What made you think Captain Rogers was a ‘college soldier’?”

“He was ‘pretty’,” she said disparagingly. “He was disrespectful to the colonel, using that nickname. And he was carrying a backpack and a portfolio case. I thought he was probably an art student.”

“He used to be,” Gibbs confirmed. “Although that was about seventy years ago, give or take.”

“And the case is how he carries his shield in public,” DiNozzo told her. “It’s an inconspicuous way to hide a very recognizable weapon.”

“What exactly did you say to Captain Rogers to make him leave?” Gibbs wanted to know.

“I told him…that if he belonged here he would have known Colonel Morris was dead,” Darla almost whispered. “He said he’d been on a mission, I accused him of making it up to…get girls on spring break. And I told him that he wasn’t allowed to bother the real veterans and if he didn’t leave I was calling the police.”

Gibbs was silent for a long moment. No one who didn’t know him would have realized he was furious. Finally, when she had started to squirm, he said, “People join the service for a lot of reasons, but once they’re in, they’re a soldier and that’s it. You are in no way qualified to decide if the service someone gave to their country was _enough_. The man you ran off was an American soldier – it doesn’t matter which soldier he was, or why he joined up, or when or where he fought. He was a soldier, and he deserved your respect.”

She nodded, sniffing…and then broke and ran from the room. “So she really didn’t recognize him?” DiNozzo asked Luke and John.

“No, we don’t think so – and if we’d thought she had, there’s no way in hell we’d have let her stay here, no matter what the head office wanted,” John said. He sighed. “I know you boys can’t tell us what else went on that day, but we know something went really, really wrong if he was here asking for Sparky in the afternoon when he’d just been in a battle that morning.”

“He came to Colonel Morris a lot when he was having problems?” DiNozzo wanted to know.

“It’s not unusual,” Luke told him. “For the younger guys to seek out an old soldier to talk to when some kind of shit goes down and they don’t quite know how to handle it.” He waved a hand at the office. “That’s one of the reasons we’re here.”

“You can’t tell us anything about Steve?” John asked. “I mean, I know you can’t tell us details, I get that…but we’re really worried about him. We don’t know where he would have gone to get help after coming here.”

“That’s what we’re trying to figure out,” Gibbs told him. He frowned. “I can tell you he didn’t take his phone or his motorcycle when he left Avengers Tower that afternoon, just his knapsack and his shield. None of his teammates know where he might have gone, they were just sure it wouldn’t be to SHIELD.”

“No, it wouldn’t be – that much I know.” Luke shook his head. “Dammit. The one person who would have known was Sparky.”

“I know he and Steve had talked a few times about Steve not feeling up to snuff,” John said suddenly. He smiled slightly when DiNozzo’s mouth dropped open in shock. “Yeah, I know. But I think he was taking some heat about being out of date from some of his team sometimes, maybe from SHIELD, too. Everyone was putting a hell of a lot of pressure on the kid. He was handling it, but…”

“But he’s still a kid,” Gibbs finished for him, nodding. “Yeah, ran into some of that at the Tower earlier, had to do a little correcting. They’re worried as hell now, though. They were sure he’d come back.”

Luke and John looked at each other. “Yeah,” Luke said, shaking his head again. “We would have been too.”

  

When the woman called Darla turned around in the stockroom, still wiping her eyes, she almost screamed – Gibbs was standing right behind her. “The teary-eyed running out of the room was too much,” he said in a low voice that wouldn’t have carried past the stockroom’s doorway even if it had been open. “It’s probably part of your plan anyway, to quit, but I’m moving up your timeline – you quit today.” His eyes were hard, his voice harder. “I know you’re a plant, and I know you knew exactly who Captain Rogers was the other day – because you were assigned here specifically to intercept him, to make him stop coming here. Go crawl back under your rock, the same one your boss is sulking under right now, and do not ever come out again anywhere I can see you.” He leaned a little closer, whispering, “Conducting covert operations on American soil is a federal no-no, no matter what your organization’s name is.”

She tried for offended. “I was not…”

“Yes, you were,” he cut her off. “And your boss could probably wiggle out of it, but I doubt he’d bother to wiggle enough for both of you. You might want to keep that in mind.”

 

When they went back out to their car, Gibbs sat in the passenger seat and frowned all the way back to their hotel. Something was bugging him – and it wasn’t the bugs he knew SHIELD had probably planted in the car. Once they got to the hotel, he used hand gestures to have DiNozzo and McGee use the equipment he’d brought with him to sweep the rooms for bugs, and he personally flushed every one they found. Then he had McGee turn on a signal-blocker and a white noise generator to shut out the ones they hadn’t found. “Something is bothering me about this,” he said once he was sure he wasn’t including SHIELD in the conversation. “Rogers’ friends at the post know him pretty well, I’d say they know him better than his teammates do.”

“He was just another soldier to them,” DiNozzo suggested. “Not an icon, not the leader, not competition – just one of the guys. So why didn’t he have that with the Avengers?” He frowned. “Stark, or SHIELD?”

“Stark isn’t dumping his stress well, and something’s stuck in his craw that he’s not sharing with his team. He was hinting a little too hard while we were there, so it’s likely something he thinks he knows – or that someone told him – about Rogers.” Gibbs waved it off. “I still don’t think that’s why Rogers left, although I do think it may be a symptom of a larger problem the rest of the team is just now realizing they have. But aside from that, none of them seem to have recognized the signs that Rogers was being pushed too hard and not given enough support; I got the feeling they all thought SHIELD was handling that end of things – the ‘soldier’ end of things. But not only was SHIELD not doing that, but when Rogers found some support on his own they went out of their way to take it away from him. Why would you treat a valuable asset that way?”

DiNozzo was nodding. “You’re right, it doesn’t make sense. You’d think they’d have been doing everything they could to take care of him…”

“Wait a minute…” McGee’s eyes had widened with a sudden realization. He dragged his laptop over and started typing and clicking at top speed. “I did the standard checks on Rogers, and some of them came up blank – no bank account, no credit cards, no W2. I thought they might be paying him some other way for security reasons, writing it off as expenses for another project. And I managed to find the project, and sure enough there were regular payouts there being made to a debit account in his name. But now that I think about it, there was something about that project…” He stopped just as suddenly as he’d started, then turned the screen so Gibbs and DiNozzo could see it. “There, right there.” McGee pointed to one particular line. “Boss, they’re not actually paying him, he’s not an employee of SHIELD.” He swallowed. “Captain Rogers _is_ the project. And according to SHIELD, he’s their property.”

 

Natasha called a meeting of the Avengers that evening, after having Tony and Jarvis verify that there were no SHIELD bugs planted on their ‘family’ floor. “Where’s Clint?” Bruce wanted to know. “Shouldn’t he…”

“He is not here,” Natasha told him. She looked around the half-circle of worried faces. “He is following the investigative team, they are following up on a lead we gave them. He will contact me if they find Steve. For now, though, I will give you the information he passed on to me.” She smiled. “They thought to block the surveillance devices SHIELD had planted in their room, but did not apparently consider the need to block human hearing.”

“Do they know anything of the whereabouts of our shield brother?” Thor wanted to know. He had come back a few hours earlier and been frustrated when told he could not go out looking for Steve himself; now he was fingering his hammer and frowning, as though disappointed that it could not solve this problem for him. “Have they discovered anything that may help us to find him?”

“No, but they have perhaps discovered why he left.” Natasha shook her head at Tony when he made a face. “No. The problem is not us, we were merely a symptom. The problem is SHIELD, and the use to which they were putting Captain Rogers.”

“I take it you’re not referring to him leading the Avengers,” came from Bruce.

“No. I am referring to them using him as a test subject to explore the effects of time displacement on an individual operative.” She took a breath. “To that end, he was given only the most rudimentary orientation to modern life, and no psychological counseling whatsoever.”

Bruce slowly sat up out of his slouch. “That can’t be. Fury treats him like he’s just another team leader – we’ve all heard him calling Steve on the carpet when something doesn’t go right.”

“Which is quite interesting, given that he is not listed as an employee of SHIELD,” Natasha said. She sighed, which was uncharacteristic for her. “Steve was apparently obtaining help from the local VFW post, an outlet which SHIELD tried to deny him by threatening the veterans there. Unfortunately for them, a ranking officer there had friends in high places, he threw the agents out and called in favors to keep them out.” The slight smile she had been wearing fell back off. “He died last week, while we were on the mission. Steve’s friends there notified him, but the message was intercepted by SHIELD and he never received it.”

Bruce was openmouthed, and angry, but luckily not green yet. “He went there, after the fight, didn’t he?” he said, sounding like he was half-hoping it wasn’t true. “He went there to talk to the guy who died.”

“And was thrown out of the post by a receptionist – most likely a SHIELD plant – who claimed to not believe he belonged there, or that he was a real soldier,” she confirmed. “His friends there are very upset, apparently.”

“He has friends who don’t live here?” Tony threw out, sounding surprised. “I didn’t think…”

“SHIELD apparently did, or they wouldn’t have tried to mess it up for him.” Bruce was shaking his head. “They didn’t want him to get help, or support. That would have skewed their data.”

“But we’re his friends, why didn’t he come talk to us?!”

“Because we are not his type of warrior,” came from Thor. He was somewhere between sad and angry now. “He sought the counsel of those who could understand.” He sighed. “As we could not.”

“So he left because he was feeling sorry for himself, is that what you’re saying?”

“Why are you so hostile to him?” Bruce asked, mildly but with real curiosity. “I’ve wondered about it a few times lately, since you two were getting along okay last year, but I thought you were just being a jerk for personal reasons and it would sort itself out eventually. So what exactly is it that keeps setting you off where he’s concerned?”

Tony huffed, folding his arms defensively. “His attitude, for one. He thinks he’s perfect.”

“No, he is attempting to live up to the expectation that he is supposed to appear perfect,” Natasha corrected with surprising gentleness. “Once it was pointed out, I was ashamed that I did not notice the game being played. Steve is given no support by SHIELD, yet he is held accountable by Fury for anything which does not go according to plan – Fury’s plan, not his.”

“SHIELD – and a lot of other people – have been playing around with ‘storing’ soldiers and agents for years,” Bruce explained further. “The problem was, they had no way of knowing what would happen when you woke those people up in the future, no way of knowing if someone who was severely time-displaced would be able to function normally – to do the job you wanted to them to do – in what would essentially be a completely new environment that was just familiar enough to screw with their heads.” He made a face. “That whole fake room they had him wake up in…I have to wonder now if the discrepancies were put in on purpose, to see if he’d notice them or not.”

Thor’s jaw had set. “They began this ‘game’ immediately on his awakening? Does Director Fury know of this?”

“Director Fury is the one who set it up,” Natasha told him. “I was in the building at the time – yet another reason I should have seen it sooner. The director just happened to be near enough with a full security entourage to intercept the captain in the center of Times Square, only a few hundred feet from the building entrance. Six cars, all carrying armed agents,” she explained when Tony started to open his mouth. “All converging perfectly on a single man in the center of the street, mere seconds after he had rushed out of their building. And the director perfectly positioned to catch his attention and bring the situation back under control.”

Tony deflated. “Well shit.”

“I second that,” Bruce said. He was still looking at Tony, though. “You thinking that Steve thinks he’s perfect? Not a good enough answer for the crap you’ve been spewing lately – especially four days ago – because at least half of it has been things you should _know_ aren’t true.”

The other man shifted uncomfortably but didn’t say anything. “Perhaps the professional Lady Pepper has said you are required to speak to would be able to assist you?” Thor asked. The fact that both Bruce and Natasha froze when he said it did not escape his notice, and he frowned. “You are troubled by this? Lady Pepper said that some are, but that sometimes it is necessary…”

“That’s not it, Thor,” Bruce cut him off. “Sometimes it is necessary. Mandatory therapy, ordered by who, the company’s board?” he hissed at Tony. His brown eyes had taken on a distinctly green tinge. “Let me guess, your therapist doesn’t like Steve all that much?”

Tony was looking even more uncomfortable now. “With good reason. She said there have been incidents. That SHIELD forced everyone involved to cover up. Incidents with young female employees…”

“Young female undercover operatives,” Natasha corrected coolly. “If they existed at all anywhere but as a name in an assignment dossier. So you – and Pepper – believe a man you have lived and worked beside for over a year to be an unrepentant sexual predator, and that SHIELD condones such occurrences in the interest of public relations?”

“When you say it like that…”

“It sounds ridiculous,” Bruce finished for him. “What else does your therapist have to say?”

Tony swallowed. “That it’s okay to feel resentful of the game-playing bastard because…because he is one and my dad couldn’t see it, because he’d had the wool pulled over his eyes so he was disappointed in _me_ for not being more like his too-good-to-be-true ‘buddy’.” Surprisingly, that made Bruce laugh. Tony tried for offended. “Not funny, Banner. My father…”

“Your father was Steve’s friend,” Bruce interrupted, shaking his head. “They fought together in a war, your dad knew exactly what kind of man Steve Rogers was, and he liked him. And I’ve read some of his diaries,” he held up a hand at Tony’s outraged intake of breath, “looking for clues about the serum and the ‘vital rays’ they used to trigger the change. Did your therapist say she’d read them?” Tony nodded, jaw clenched. “Yeah, well, she lied. Because I learned enough in Psych 101 to know that the man who wrote that stuff wasn’t disappointed in you for not being like his friend…he was disappointed in himself for not being able to raise you to be more like his friend. He was disappointed because he raised you to be like him, and Howard Stark had reached a point in his life where he just didn’t like himself all that much.” A snort. “You weren’t the failure in your dad’s eyes, he was. He couldn’t see the good in himself, and that meant he was blind to it in you, too.” He turned back to Natasha. “Can you expose this bitch and get through to Pepper? Maybe find out who among the board members has been compromised too?”

“Actually, Jarvis can do that,” was her answer. She did not look at Tony. “I will give him the search parameters. Can you check for other signs of brainwashing in the meantime?”

“I have not been…”

“You wouldn’t know if you were,” Bruce told him matter-of-factly. “And yes, you probably were, or you would have used Jarvis to confirm those ‘incidents’ your therapist told you about instead of just taking it on faith that they actually happened the way she said they did.”

Tony didn’t have an answer for that either.

  

DiNozzo had been to the ex-spook retirement area in coastal Mexico before, but never on entirely official business – not only were federal agents not authorized to work in a foreign country, but usually when Gibbs made contact with Franks it was a situation where they were going to have to get creative with the paperwork afterwards anyway. This time, however, was different. The older man was at home and didn’t seem to have been expecting them specifically although he did seem to have been expecting someone; the fact that he seemed to be _relieved_ Gibbs had shown up was making DiNozzo jumpy enough to wish Gibbs had sent him back to DC with McGee. Who the hell would a guy like Franks be afraid of, and on his home turf, no less?

SHIELD, as it turned out. “They’re cold-blooded bastards, even for this business,” Franks told them. “But you already knew that, Gibbs. I was glad to hear Barton got away from them, even if it was just halfway by becoming one of the Avengers with his pet Russian assassin.”

“Pet…”

“They sent him to kill her,” Franks explained. “He decided not to and convinced her to switch sides instead, he’s lucky they didn’t kill him and her both. Even though his handler did support his decision, and agree with his reasoning, they’ve been lookin’ at Barton like a rogue agent for years now over that. Gave his handler endless shit over it too.”

Gibbs was giving him a look, part exasperated, part knowing. “What can you tell us about Captain Rogers?”

“Captain America?”

“Captain America is his code name. _His_ name is Captain Steven Rogers. You think he took off because of SHIELD?”

“I don’t think anything about Captain America, except that the poor bastard probably deserved better than to get thawed-out by bad guys who think they’re good guys. I’m surprised it took the President this long to get hold of the shit they’ve been up to with him, or with the Avengers – although I wouldn’t be surprised if they’d found a way to keep his leash tight from that end, too.”

“I had thought of that, but that wasn’t what I was there for – I was there to get information about Captain Rogers. And I got you as a possible connection,” Gibbs said pointedly. “He knew you helped Banner and Barton, I think he came here – to talk to you and get some advice, if nothing else.” Franks just lifted a white eyebrow, and Gibbs scowled. “Dammit, Franks, I just need _something_! You mentioned Barton’s handler, would he be able to help?”

“I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t be out here if he could. SHIELD had him killed. Wasn’t too happy about that.” He frowned, though, then rolled his eyes and halfway turned around, pointing up into the trees about thirty feet away. “Okay, I’m sick of this shit! If you don’t get your ass down here right now, I’m gonna come over there and yank you down by that busted wing.”

“Asshole,” said a disembodied voice, and a moment later Clint Barton dropped out of concealment and landed in a smooth crouch, then straightened and walked over to them. He was wearing casual clothes and sunglasses, and the sling he’d had at Avengers Tower was nowhere in sight although the way he was holding his arm said he probably still needed it. “I knew you knew I was there, Franks.”

“Yeah, well, I decided I needed you down here where everyone could see you, Barton,” Franks shot back. “I take it you know Gibbs and his posse?”

“We met back in New York,” was the response. “He’s not goin’ after Steve without one of us around.”

Gibbs started to say something, but a look from Franks shut him up. “I can’t blame you there, that boy needed a friend more than anything,” he agreed. “He wasn’t running, though, he was just lookin’ for a place to go get some personal issues sorted out. So I called in a favor and got him a job – a temporary one,” he reassured the suddenly alarmed-looking archer. “He’ll be back, don’t worry. He’s already got a team and he knows it, he was just in over his head and I think he could use some training time.”

Barton’s eyes had widened, and Franks answered his wordless question with a nod and a wink; the archer visibly relaxed. “Okay,” he agreed. “That is…yeah, that’s perfect. They’re _all_ like him. He’ll be just one of the guys there.”

“I know.” Franks hid a smile at Gibbs’ growing impatience. “It’s classified, Gibbs, way the hell above your current pay grade. All I’ll say is that the kid’s in good hands with Hawk, and he’ll be back once Hawk decides he’s ready – and not a minute before.”

To DiNozzo’s surprise, Gibbs accepted that immediately. “Okay,” he said. “You could have told me that before, you know.”

“I wanted to know why you thought you were huntin’ the kid first,” Franks told him. “That Fury’s slick as snot on a flagpole, I wasn’t sure what story he’d fed you or what, exactly, he was tryin’ to get you to do.”

“I got my orders from the President, Franks. We never even talked to Director Fury.”

“And then they talked to us, and figured the rest out on their own,” Barton said. The look he was giving Gibbs was implacable, but not hostile. “You seem like a good guy, Gibbs, but like I said at the Tower, none of us can be trusted all the way. And when it comes right down to it, Steve’s ours to look out for.”

Gibbs couldn’t help himself. “Yeah, that didn’t go so well, did it?”

“He went to go talk to a buddy he knew he could trust,” the archer pointed out, not taking offense. “He was already havin’ a shitty day, most of us weren’t around, and then that agent-laid bitch down at the VFW made it worse.” Clint spat into the sand. “Where was he gonna go, back to SHIELD, the people who’d been screwing with him and everyone else around him? He knew, at that point, that he’d been right about how bad they actually were. Hell, just because I’m tied to them by the job doesn’t mean I don’t hate them. I’d move in under a god-damned bridge before I put myself back into those people’s hands, and I’d kill Nat before I let them drag her back.”

“You need a vacation,” Franks told him, patting him on his uninjured shoulder. “You know, I’ve got just the thing. I’m short on space, but a buddy of mine lives right up that way.” He pointed up the beach, where a curve of trees and vegetation jutting out towards the water had pushed the coastline into a mini peninsula that blocked the view. “He’s a former too, but his people ‘retired’ him kind of against his will and he ain’t too happy about it – and he’s got a wing out of whack just like you do. Take a stroll over there, he should be out sittin’ in his chair on the beach, tell him I sent you because he’s goin’ plumb crazy all by himself and it’s about time someone did somethin’ about it. Bring him back for dinner in an hour, I’ll fire up the grill and we can all sit down and talk about what needs to happen next.” Clint hesitated, but a pointed, unreadable look from Franks had him nodding his head, and he trudged obediently up the beach and soon disappeared from view.

DiNozzo was watching the whole thing like it was a tennis match. Agents in trees, spooks on the beach, people whose names he wasn’t supposed to know…it was like watching a movie that always started in the middle and that he couldn’t tell anyone else he’d seen. It was interesting, but it frustrated him sometimes. “So, what now?” he wanted to know, getting tired of the staring match going on between Gibbs and Franks. “If Rogers is safe, do we just go back and tell the others that? Do we tell SHIELD? Or do we need to keep investigating?”

“We go back, later tonight,” Gibbs said without hesitation. “We report to the other Avengers that Rogers is safe, that he’s taking some voluntary training time and he’ll be back when he’s done. As for SHIELD…well, I’m pretty sure that by the time we get back stateside, Fury will already know exactly where his supersoldier is, if he doesn’t already.” A hard grin appeared. “If I remember what I’ve heard about Hawk right, he’ll have called the manipulative bastard himself to gloat.”

 

In the middle of his headquarters, General Hawk was doing just that – although he wasn’t using a phone. Instead, he’d pulled the looped feed from the “Fury Cam” as they called the active but blocked spy camera SHEILD had once tried to stick them with into his private office and unblocked the active transmission, grinning widely into the camera. “Hi Nick, you bastard,” he said, kicking back in his chair and putting his feet up on his desk. “I’ve got a new Joe, name of Rogers, I heard you were looking for him? I’m fixing his paperwork since your people made such a mess out of it. Do I need to send you some secretaries or somethin’? Yours had him listed as a test subject retrieved from the Arctic, it didn’t even look like you were paying him – hell, in some places it kind of looked like you hadn’t recorded him as an actual person! Well, like I said, I’m fixing it. The guy’s got one hell of a pension coming, we’re paying SHIELD back for his retrieval, and probably we’ll just assign him to active duty with the Avengers once he’s done here.” He leaned forward, the smile on his face becoming a baring of teeth, hard and dangerous. “Play any more games like this on my watch and we’re gonna have words in person, Fury. You do not fuck with a good soldier and especially not with my people, and as of now Rogers is my people.” He leaned back again. “Oh, and I already notified his team of his whereabouts so they wouldn’t worry. I sent a Joe to stand in for him, too, and I’ve got some people on call who can pitch in if something comes up – you guys really do get attacked a lot these days, I might have to look into that when I have time.” He gave a sarcastic salute, his other hand hovering over the cutoff button. “Have a nice day.” He cut the feed, grin softening and turning wicked. “Check and mate, jerkoff, I win.” He pushed another button. “Send Nick Fury some flowers, would you? I think he’s having kind of a shitty day.”

His secretary’s voice came back, eye roll audible. “Yes General, I’ll rub his nose in it for you. The pictures will be in your email upon delivery.”

  

Two days later, Agents McGee and DiNozzo walked off the private elevator at Avengers Tower on the penthouse level, steering one of the two men with them toward the nearest couch. “You know, you don’t have to…”

“Yeah, I do,” McGee told Clint, grinning a little. “Gibbs said put you back on medical downtime where you belonged, and I’m a lot more afraid of him than I am of you, Barton.”

The other man with them chuckled, and Clint dropped onto the couch with a grin and only a slight wince. “Yeah, I can see that – and I don’t blame you a bit.”

Bruce came walking out. “Oh, you’re back, good. Who’s…” The other man turned around, and his mouth dropped open. “No, you’re…he LIED to us?! That son of a bitch….”

And then he turned into the Hulk. McGee slapped DiNozzo’s arm to stop him reaching for his gun. “I wouldn’t,” he warned in a low voice. And then he walked up to the confused-appearing monster and waved. “Hi Hulk, I’m Agent McGee. I’m one of the people who’s been looking for Captain Rogers…but as you can see, we found someone else first. We thought he’d be safer here with you guys, so we brought him and Barton home.”

The Hulk looked at him…and then stuck out his massive hand. McGee met him halfway and something like a handshake happened, and then he backed off. “Captain Rogers is fine, by the way,” he said. “He thought he needed some retraining, so he found a unit to do that with and he’ll be home once they decide he’s ready.”

“Army?” The Hulk rumbled suspiciously. “Hulk not like Army.”

“I don’t blame you, but the guys Captain Rogers is with aren’t exactly Army.” He motioned, and the green behemoth dipped its head so he could whisper something in its ear. Hulk’s eyes widened, and then he boomed out a huge laugh that shook the windows…and collapsed back into Bruce, half-naked but still chuckling. “Well, I guess that was funny, whatever it was,” he said, climbing back to his feet and clapping McGee on the shoulder. “So you’re not afraid…”

McGee shrugged. “I did my homework, Dr. Banner. The Hulk only goes after people who are threatening him or someone he likes. I knew I wouldn’t be in any danger.”

“Thanks for that,” Bruce told him, looking genuinely happy. “If I wasn’t half-naked, I’d hug you. Does Steve know about Phil?”

“By now he probably does, yeah. Gossip apparently spreads really fast in that particular…community.”

“It does,” Phil concurred. “In spite of the fact that their jobs are all about secrecy, covert agents gossip like sorority girls.” The smile he was giving Bruce was warm. “Dr. Banner, I was really glad to hear that you’d stayed here in New York with the rest of them. Any new patents this year?”

“I’m working on one, you can come down and have a look later if you want,” Bruce told him. “You’re staying here with Clint, right?”

Phil Coulson, formerly dead handler and long-time romantic partner to Clint Barton, blushed. “So I’ve been told, although I’m not sure what Mr. Stark will think about that.”

Bruce snorted. “He won’t have a problem with it. Finding out SHIELD had infiltrated his company’s board and then had him and Pepper brainwashed just completely threw him, he’s still trying to sort out whether he wants to be furious or ashamed of himself and right now he’s somewhere in the middle. But if you’re worried about it…Jarvis, could you ask Tony if he minds if Phil moves in with Clint, please?”

“Certainly, Dr. Banner.” There was a pause. “Sir says that is perfectly acceptable, and to let me know if you need anything, Agent Coulson. He also says he will come up to greet you once he is done having another heart attack and plotting the brutal murder of Director Fury.”

“Tell him I said thank you, and I’d be happy to help him with that last part later if he’d like – we can’t actually go through with it, but I know from personal experience that the planning by itself can be extremely cathartic,” was Phil’s reply. “And my title is now Permanent Representative of the Avengers, although the President says the paperwork won’t be finalized for another day or two.”

“That’s where we’ve been for the past day and a half, we’ve been in Washington trying to straighten this mess out,” DiNozzo explained for Bruce’s benefit. “The President was already mad, but now he’s really furious. I would _not_ want to be a member of SHIELD right now, they’re about to get the living crap kicked out of them by the White House.”

“Nat and I aren’t agents anymore either, we’re officially Avengers – and so are you, Bruce,” came from Clint. “That paperwork might take a little longer than Phil’s will, because they’ve got to figure out where we’ll fit in the system. We might end up as an independent unit under the same covert branch Steve’s workin’ with right now. They said they’ve got a guy upstate who could be over us if they do it that way. He’s retired, but they think they can convince him to come at least halfway out for this – turns out Steve’s buddy Sparky used to be his CO, I guess he hit the fucking roof when they told him what had been going on.” He’d stopped smiling, though. “Bad news about that is…they think SHIELD may have had somethin’ to do with Sparky’s death.”

“Director Fury had best be hoping that isn’t true,” Phil said mildly. “I’ve never met the retired general they’re talking to in person, but I do know who he is. He’s basically what Captain Rogers would have grown into if the Arctic crash hadn’t happened when it did – which means he’s definitely _not_ someone you want to piss off.”

Bruce snorted. “Most of us around here aren’t.” Natasha and another man came hurrying into the room at that point, and he waved a dismissive hand at them. “It’s okay, I was just…startled, nothing bad is happening. Agent Gibbs’ people were just delivering Clint and his boyfriend.”

Natasha had stopped dead, staring, and then she stalked over to Phil and hugged him, muttering something in Russian. She glared at Clint over his shoulder. “You could have called me.”

“He didn’t dare,” Phil told her, and she pulled back to frown. “SHIELD doesn’t know I’m here yet – the President said we needed to keep it quiet until he’s done ripping into them, and we know they have the phones under surveillance.” He snorted a little laugh. “I still can’t believe the NSA took the heat for that program, someone over there must have been doing something just ridiculously blackmail-worthy for Director Fury to get that to happen.” He cocked his head, looking at the man who had come in with her. “He looks…really familiar for some reason.”

“He’s the guy General Hawk sent to fill in as our team leader until Steve gets back,” Bruce told him. “Clint, Phil, this is Sgt. Barnes. He just got here a few hours before you did, he was Tony’s first heart attack.”

Phil’s eyes had gone wide. “ _The_ Sergeant Barnes?”

“Weirdly, even after all this time, there is still only one of me, yes.” Barnes was just a little taller than Bruce, with brown hair and brown eyes, and what looked like an artificial hand. “And before you ask, yes, Steve knows. He said to tell everyone I’m the annoying one and please don’t let the Other Guy or Black Widow kill me.” The corners of his brown eyes crinkled when he smiled. “He was really surprised when I told him ‘Tasha and I already knew each other and she was gonna do no such thing.”

Natasha rolled her eyes. “I did consider it, at least briefly. He, also, did not call.”

Barnes raised both hands; the left one caught the light with a gleam of silver. “Hey, take it up with the general, that is not my fault.”

Phil’s eyes had gone even wider; so had Clint’s. “Wait, he’s…” She nodded, and he shook his head. “That’s...well fuck. I guess Fury doesn’t know you’re here either, Barnes?”

“Probably not, but he did know I was alive; he’s apparently known for years,” Barnes disclaimed immediately. “Steve not knowing was just one more thing for the general to be pissed off about – and believe me, he was pissed off enough already.” Surprisingly, he chuckled. “He probably sent Fury flowers or somethin’, I’ve heard he does that when he wants to rub it in.”

“I would have loved to be a fly on the wall when that delivery came in,” Phil said. “The expression on his face…”

“It was quite amusing,” Jarvis intoned. The television screen in the living room lit up, and filled with a series of three photographs – one of a very nice flower arrangement with a condolence message attached, and two of Fury receiving said arrangement. “The general’s secretary sent them to me at his request; the phones are still not secure enough for sending such a message, but he thought all of you would want to see them sooner rather than later.”

 

Down in his workshop, Tony watched the rest of the team laughing on the security cameras with a smile. He’d go up there later, maybe for dinner once Pepper got home. Right now, though, he was busy working on a new satellite security system that would make the kind of eavesdropping SHIELD had been doing – and blaming on the NSA – virtually impossible to get away with undetected; it was sort of like Jarvis Lite for the global communications network. Tony knew his teammates weren’t blaming him for being brainwashed, he even knew Steve wouldn’t blame him, but he also knew he’d feel better about everything that had happened once he’d done some things to make up for it. Blocking the unauthorized eyes and ears of the organization that had kicked off the whole mess – and that had used him to help them keep it messy – definitely qualified as one of those things. Although he could and would admit that he’d also wanted to get some of his own back on that score, because Tony Stark was nobody’s pawn.

In the deeper shadows of the workshop, reflected light picked out the glistening golden edge of a small, freshly-painted image on the arm of the Iron Man suit, something that looked a lot like the stylized silhouette of a classic chess knight.

**Author's Note:**

> Please consider this an open AU - I don't have any more stories to tell in it myself, but I know there could very easily _be_ more stories if someone else was inspired to write them. Enjoy!


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